Read the TV Guide, You Don’t Need a TV
Let’s just say that the Lost Boys resonated a lot with me. Not because we had a vampire problem (or a vampire solution, as I looked at Santa Clara during my Kiefer Sutherland crush) but because, like Sam Emerson’s Grandpa, we didn’t really watch a lot of television. I guess I watched more than Grandpa since he didn’t have a television. But still…
What we did have was the piano sheet music for all the popular television shows. (Play the television theme songs, you don’t need to hear the actual theme song, Grandpa might add.) After I pounded my way through Mozart and Chopin, I could kick back and play a little “Love Boat” or “Dukes of Hazzard” or “Greatest American Hero.”
I may not have watched a lot of these shows, but I could sing every single theme song as if I watched these shows.
Yesterday’s post on Jezebel made me nostalgic for my television theme song sheet music. People don’t make great theme songs anymore. The only opening worth watching at the moment is the one for the Americans. But it’s an instrumental, and Josh doesn’t like it when I sing over the opening in a breath-y voice, “we are KGeeeeeeB spies, we are the KGB!”
I feel like Friends is the last show I watched that came with a catchy song that you hummed during the week, waiting for the next episode to air. I still sing a bunch of them: Silver Spoons;
Love, Sidney (Oooh, with Tony Randall! I just loved Tony Randall!)
And best instrumental, Twin Peaks (Didn’t the song creep you out?)
What television theme songs do you still sing?
P.S. My favourite forever and ever will be Speed Racer. It’s my ringtone for all doctor’s offices.
17 comments
I love the theme song for The Big Bang Theory. And Friwnds, of course. I sing both to my son every day!
Facts of Life anyone? That was one of my favorites growing up (song and show).
Twin Peaks theme totally creeped me out, but that show did at times too. I still have the creeps when I think of Laura’s mom remembering Laura’s room earlier in the day and realizing that someone was in there hiding.
Another favorite theme was Different Strokes.
Loved the Friends theme. 🙂 One that I’ve been humming lately is from Perfect Strangers (“Standing tall on the wings of my dream…”).
Personally, I like to annoy people with the earworms of the (original) Hawaii 5-0 theme or the theme from Sanford and Son. We’ve recently watched the entire Full House series on DVD, so that pops into my head on occasion.
Facts of Life, definitely! Best instrumental for me is Little House
I can’t help but sing along to the theme from Growing Pains.
As a huge BNL fan I may be a bit biased, but I think The Big Bang Theory has a pretty catchy theme song. You’re right, though; most current TV shows have very forgettable music.
Theme from The Greatest American Hero. Also Laverne and Shirley.
I used ta love Speed Racer! I totally wanna sing that with you.
Brady Bunch.
I have the Twin Peaks CD. Trippy.
Whenever I point out a butterfly flying to my little boy, you can bet I’m pointing it out singing this TV show’s opening tune… “Butterfly in the sky. I can go twice as high!”
It’s Reading Rainbow, and no, not the Jimmy Fallon version although that one is quite funny.
Big Bang Theory is great!! Also Game of Thrones, but it is instrumental 🙂
Big Bang Theory. I sing along. It annoys my husband. I think that’s why I do it. Hawaii 5-0 (current and original) ditto. And going back a bit, Bonanza!
Dr Who too, of course, not that I sing it. More recently, there was of course the music to The Sopranos that I didn’t like fast forwarding through, and I also like the atmospheric theme music to The Bridge (the original Danish/Swedish version) – having just binge-watched season 2.
Sure to be more that I would recognise. And I’ve deliberately censored out any UK theme songs (Coronation St anyone) or Aussie or Kiwi ones.
Ear-worms for me tend to be jingles. I remember an extraordinary night in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the early 1990s with a group of Vietnamese who had studied in NZ under government scholarships in the 1960s. At one stage, we were all singing along to jingles for Four Square (a mini-mart). It was surreal!
@Journeywoman: I actually had the 45 & the sheet music to the Laverne & Shirley theme song, before I ever saw an episode (!). I just liked the song. My girlfriend copied the sheet music & sang it at her high school graduation. I think they only got one or two TV channels at that time (hard to believe but there was a time…!) & none of them carried L&S, so everybody just thought it was this great song about making your dreams come true. 🙂
We barely has a tv for most of my childhood ( a small b&w) and my viewing hours were limited so I missed out on most of the 80s and earlier shows- so it’s mr Rogers neighborhood for me. And from a later moment in life the Aussie soap neighbors.
I’m all about the TV theme sings. Right now, I love The Big Bang Theory and I also dig the instrumental for Game of Thrones. All time faves are Friends and The West Wing.
Muppet Show! And Sesame Street! Why yes – I did watch a lot of TV as a child… 😉
Non-kids shows: MASH, Star Trek, Mary Tyler Moore. Why yes – I’m old…. 😉
I can still bust out The Fresh Prince of Bel Air like a straight-up thug. I’m quite proud of that.
On a somewhat related note, I remember having nightmares about the Lost Boys for weeks. While my age had something to do with it (my mom totally let me watch rated R movies as a very young kid-I was 9 when I saw it), it was filmed about 30 minutes from my house. I recognized every location and totally thought vampires were right around the corner from me. That was my take away, unfortunately.
Ooh good ones in the comments…also—the brady bunch, flinstones, jetsons. Different Strokes! (I watched a TON of TV as a child).